Archive for July, 2015

I was smiling ear to ear during this last nuc inspection. Why? Can you see it? How about a closer shot: Eggs! Those little things that look like tiny grains of rice, stuck end-on in the bottoms of the cells? Future bees! Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a Queen! Woooo! This little nuc has 6 fully […]

I can’t believe I forgot to tell you all about my last huge project! But the photo in the last post made me realize that I never did post about it. Well, remember the southern slope of Backfill Hill, where I have a few grapevines? I got one retaining wall put in back in like 2013, […]

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my farm area is suited more for growing rice than veggies. This year has been especially wet, with thunderstorms nearly every other day, and my garden is suffering. Despite all the work I’ve done to raise the beds through copious additions of organic matter every year, the water […]

The little bee nuc is doing well! The last time I checked, they had capped the couple queen cells that had eggs in them, so I’m hopeful that there’s more than one queen developing. Whichever queen survives ought to emerge next weekend and start laying in another week or two. So I’ll wait to look for eggs until […]

My favorite fruit is pretty much done for the year, alas. This time though – for the first time in 3 years – I managed to make it to the pick-your-own orchard for sour cherries before they were all gone. Cherry almond sauce, sour cherry jam, pie filling, cherry syrup (in lovely flip-top bottles), […]